


She Takes You Away

by 13atoms (2Atoms)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode Fix-It: s11e09 It Takes You Away, Everyone's grieving a lot but the doctor is more, F/F, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 13:33:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16893570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2Atoms/pseuds/13atoms
Summary: What if instead of that fuckin frog, The Doctor’s companions convince her to stay.





	She Takes You Away

Once Eric was thrown back into the anti-zone by the enraged Solitract, The Doctor accepted her fate. She was done. Done with the real universe. She could try and escape, could attempt to reason, attempt to sonic the mirror open again. But she wasn’t strong enough. Not after everything. She couldn’t leave this lonely, infant consciousness. So powerful and yet completely alone, undeveloped. It had the power to give her everything she wanted, and it would manipulate her into taking it. And that was _fine._

The Doctor already knew, on some level, it would be _her._ She was grateful it hadn’t happened whilst her current companions were there. That they hadn’t seen just how much more the Solitract could affect her. Graham and Eric may have been mourning their spouses, but there was over two millennia of history for the Solitract to wrench out of history books, out of The Doctor’s own memories. It would be torture, meeting each of the forms the Solitract would inevitably take. And when her senses adjusted to the blinding light, to the unnatural, echo-less silence, the cold, there she was. In a purple zip-up hoodie, beanie perched on a perfect, unbroken sheet of golden hair. With that face that had haunted The Doctor for decades, stopped her sleeping, motivated her forward and wrenched her back, helped her heal and slit open new wounds.  

This wasn’t Rose. It couldn’t be the real Rose. The Doctor could even _see_ that it wasn’t Rose. There were flaws and imperfections in her image. Rose wasn’t even dead. She was somewhere else. She was happy.

“You can stay now… Stay with me Doctor…”

It was a poor approximation of Rose’s voice, whiny and with a slightly off accent. Another reminder of how _lonely_ this entity must be. It hadn’t been to London. It hadn’t been to Earth. Or the Milky Way. It had never even been to The Doctor’s universe. Or Rose’s.

“I don’t deserve this…” the Time Lord muttered.

She didn’t deserve Rose. Or to be trapped in the Solitract’s void. The Doctor wasn’t sure what she deserved.

The thing standing in front of her wasn’t Rose. Its hair was _too_ perfect, completely even, with no flyaways and catwalk makeup. This wasn’t the woman she loved. She was standing still, for starters, no rocking on her heels or grinning up at The Doctor, instead she was motionless and unblinking. Like a corpse.

Suddenly the ground was shifting under The Doctor’s feet, making her tread the ground and wave both arms to find some semblance of comfort. Something had filled her boots, gritty and heavy, making her itch. _Sand_. When she looked up, Rose was still there. Or rather, the Solitract was still there, tears streaming down Rose’s face in black mascara streaks, those big eyes staring up at her.

_They were on the beach_ , she realised. This was cruel. Unfathomably, inhumanly cruel.

“I can still love you!” It cried, loud and desperate. The Doctor could hear each syllable perfectly. _No wind_ , she realised. _This isn’t real_.

Yet, it knows nothing different. It’s used to loneliness. Being pushed away, being shunned. Doing whatever it could to get attention and love. It was difficult to not think about her own, younger self. At the Academy. In the years after the time lock. When Rose had been lost to the parallel universe. Everything she’d loved, secreted away from her.

Could she stabilise this dimension? Could she stay here? Be the only friend this consciousness would ever know?

She could stay with Rose… redo this beach encounter over and over again until the real-universe particles of her body were finally ripped apart by the Solitract. Her friends could make it out of the anti-zone. At they end of the day, they’d be left in roughly the right time zone, the TARDIS would sort them out. Staying here, this was a chance for The Doctor to make a difference. To do some learning. It would be a _proper_ Time Lord pastime, she pondered, discovering the truths of an entity most advanced civilisations couldn’t even _comprehend._ She’d lose the whole universe, to gain another.

She could push the Solitract a bit further. Find out if it was really inside her head. Find out what it could really offer her.

“You’re not her, Solitract. Stop trying.”

This transition was less smooth, accompanied by a shift in the air and a grinding sound under their feet. Maybe it was losing energy. Maybe it was destabilising, or _dying_. Whatever was going on, it was hurting The Doctor’s head. The rules of regular, rug-woven time didn’t seem to apply here. Her time senses were spinning, unable to detect a direction or a speed that time was passing. She couldn’t pry the past and the future and the present apart, they were crushed together with no regard for her calculations or time intuition. The gravity didn’t feel consistent, shifting in different directions beneath her. The rules of physics didn’t apply here. Maths and science and reason would fail her. _The Time Lords would’ve hated this_. It went against everything she was taught, everything her people had valued and enforced. It was uncomfortable, and she couldn’t imagine ever adjusting to it. It made her ache for home. After all, she’d done enough rebelling for a lifetime.

Rassilion.

In front of her, a familiar form of her wife. Her deceased, timeless, beautiful wife. She wanted to tell her how much she missed her. Share everything she’d experienced since their last meeting. These new friends she’d made! River had missed a whole body! Did River like her new body? Was River stronger than her now? Was she taller?

“My Doctor…”

This wasn’t River.

Her voice was ethereal, echoing in a way that The Doctor’s own didn’t - even in this bizarre plane. They were standing in a golden forrest, all the duplicated trees too uniform to be real. This was meant to be Gallifrey.

The light filtered in through the leaves like it would on Earth, with none of the softness and chaos of Gallifrey’s days, none of the complexity given by their numerous suns and moons.

“Stay… my Love…”

River’s curls weren’t right. They twisted the wrong way and they clipped in and out of existence, crackling and interfering with the bright light of the void. But The Doctor couldn’t help herself. She stepped closer, keeping one hand a few inches away from River. No. Was she solid? This incarnation of River was always so touchy-feely, and The Doctor wondered how their skin would feel together. Did this Solitract from manage to replicated that welcoming, smooth skin? Could it be like the real, tactile, beautiful version of River she’d known and loved? One brush of their skin was enough. No.

“This wont work, Solitract. I have friends to get back to.” Ryan. Graham. _Yaz._

“What is it? You think you’d miss _her_?” It cocked it’s head, and River’s hair remained completely static, clipping into the shoulders of her leather jacket. It was The Doctor’s favourite jacket. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d bought River that jacket. But she shouldn’t ever be able to see it again. Not really.

“I can be whoever you want. I can love you like she won’t, Doctor…”

Two voices were layered over each other in two different languages, River’s singing in gorgeous, lyrical Galifreyan, blending with the English of a familiar Sheffield twang, slightly too low to be Yasmin’s. Fuck, it was sweet to hear her mother tongue again, spoken by another human being. How could the Solitract possibly speak Gallifreyan?

As the form shifted yet again, patches of its skin and hair remained River’s, a patchwork quilt of women who the Doctor had loved. The forms separated, first into Yaz, then River. Then they kept going.

Oh god. Sarah Jane. Donna. _Martha._

“I can be anyone you want. You can be happy here.”

It was all of them. Even the ones she’d never let herself think about. The companions whose deaths were so shameful, such a source of guilt, that she wouldn’t hang their picture up in the TARDIS.

Jenny.

Her daughter stood there, clear as day. Jenny. In the clothes she’d died in. If she squinted, The Doctor imagined she could see two of her own handprints on Jenny’s face, now far too big for her current body. That dark green dress, sodden with blood, just at the beginning of a new world. Jenny, who she’d never seen again.

What did she have to go back to?

Loss? Graham and Ryan’s heartbreak? An increasingly-unruly TARDIS? When she could stay here, with these people, it all seemed ridiculous.

It had been so easy to tell Graham he had to sacrifice Grace for the real world. It was such a simple decision. To think Eric was an idiot for trying to choose his wife over his daughter.

But this was everyone she’d ever loved. Sure, the real universe had billions upon billions of people. There could be more friends, but none who could ever know her like these people. None who knew the old her like Sarah Jane, who knew and loved each of her faults like River Song. Another flash of red hair, oh God, Amy Pond. Beautiful, brilliant, Amy Pond. If only they could be real. She could tell them everything. Her whole adult life she’d been building herself a new family, scattered through time and the universe, and now she could see them all at once, tell them she loved them so, so much. She was a _daughter-in-law_ now. Amy Pond’s daughter! She’d love to tell her that. To reintroduce herself. To laugh about life just like they had back when she had that stupid chin. They could be together, giggle like they had whenever they’d eaten countless ridiculous foods together around countless kitchen tables. And holding her hand, Rory!

If only they were real. She imagined the conversations that would be happening: the joyous reunions, the petty fights, the inevitable group-hug.

If she dared to dream about having everything she’d ever wanted, this would be it.

But River was flickering, beckoning her closer with the wrong voice, not reacting even as the ground shifted under their feet. Rose wasn’t running towards her for the reunion-snog of a lifetime, and Yaz’s face was static, emotionless. This wasn’t right. Donna even wasn’t arguing with her, asking her whether they’ve _got women Martians now,_ and Martha’s smile was so, painfully, _vacant._

She couldn’t be happy here. This would be torture, living in a world with just the bodies these people. She’d be living in a world made solely out of her own past. She’d have to give up her future to bask in history, to be surrounded by ghosts.

There was still a real world, on the other side of that mirror. Her friends were waiting for her. Her _fam_. Graham was hurting from one loss already, she couldn’t take any more from him. And Ryan. Sweet, sweet, kind Ryan. Ryan who had only just seen the how beautiful the world was. Sweet Ryan who would go out of his comfort zone to help. Who would sacrifice himself for any of them in a heartbeat. He was grieving too. Learning to mourn and to feel, finding his new family. The force that was dragging her back, though, was Yaz. Yaz who was making her feel things this body hadn’t yet. Yaz who wouldn’t ever get over missing The Doctor. Who _thrived_ on their ridiculous, stupid, crazy, dangerous lifestyle. Who brought light to every single entity they’d meet.

She was Yaz’s favourite person. They’d only just met, and yet Yaz would be waiting for her. Yaz who’d told her to _reverse the polarity_. If she stayed, she’d be living in a world without Yaz.

So she’d have to leave the Solitract behind.

*

_I’ve lost more._

The Doctor barely had time to catch her breath, clambering up from the rocky floor of the buffer zone. The Solitract had been a little gentler with her, returning her with a hesitance that it hadn’t shown any of the humans. She tried not to dwell on how sad it had sounded, bidding her goodbye through the mouths of all her past companions. For now, she had to get back to her universe, before the buffer zone collapsed.

She could navigate back to the mirror by the shouts of her friends, using the grisly remains of Ribbons as a waypoint. She burst back through the portal with ragged, desperate breaths.

“That’ll never get any less disorientating,” she muttered, once again feeling deeply grateful for her sonic as the portal closed. Time to do a headcount.

“Got everyone?”

Oh, no. Bad choice of words, Doctor. Stupid. Insensitive. Even Yaz winced, as her voice dispersed into the quiet of the room. Oh, Rassilion. But still, Yaz was here! Everyone was here. Everyone who was meant to be here, minus the cruel apparitions created by the ancient Solitract. They were safe, and the rift was gone. Time to get out of here.

*

The Doctor took a moment alone, staring out over the fjord. She relished in the _real, Earth_ air, in the regular ticking of time, the proximity of the TARDIS and her friends, the stable ground under her feet.

Somewhere, a few hundred metres to her left, Graham was doing something similar. Thinking. Trying not to think. Grounding himself. It was hard. The Doctor knew that well enough. But she couldn’t help a twinge of jealousy. It would be so simple, to only grieve one person. A single person, from a linear timeline, who’d had a singular role in your life.

The Doctor had loved so much more, and lost so much more than any of these people could ever know. Even River would never know. She wouldn’t ever see the inevitable and heart-breaking deaths of The Doctor’s current companions, of her friends and enemies and companions to come. The Doctor probably couldn’t even remember all the lives she’d touched, for better or worse. Every scared hand she’d held, every person she’d killed or saved or walked past on a busy highstreet.

Seen more. Loved more. Lost more. It was a mantra, one she told herself every night. Because as much as it felt like it, she wasn’t _one of them_. She wasn’t part of her human _fam_. Not in the way her human companions were. Her mind repeated it like Eric’s speakers, keeping her out of those particular metaphorical woods like poor Hanne.

She didn’t know how much Eric had told her companions. Selfishly, she hoped he’d shared something. Shared how close The Doctor had been to sacrificing herself, informed them that she was willing to end it right now, just to save a single selfish, flawed human being. That they’d _know_ her pain and loss and everything in between. But it was a heavy load to bare. One that she didn’t really feel the right to share with anyone.

So, with a handclap and a few parting words to Hanne and Eric, she gathered her friends and bundled them back onto the TARDIS. Back to tend to their physical and emotional wounds, and to ignore her own.

*

As always, the infirmary was conveniently closer than she remembered, and soon enough the four were scattered across beds and chairs, pressing futuristic med packs to their newly-formed bruises. The Universe could do with investing a little more in buffer zone floors, apparently.

With pain meds administered and strict instructions to take it easy for a few hours, the group left the med bay. Ryan and Graham had their own wounds to lick, and opted to take their bruise packs away and wind down in private.

She watched them go with a tactless “Goodnight, Fam!”

Nice one, Doctor.

Yaz suggested getting tea in the library, and they physically made up a tray (it just wasn’t as much of a ritual when the TARDIS did it) to take to the sofa area. As always, Yaz knew. She could see that The Doctor was more affected by the day than she cared to admit. That the Time Lord was emotionally exhausted and far, far too wound up to sleep. She stepped carefully around The Doctor, using kind, careful words as though she might break down crying at any moment. Perhaps she would.

Desperate to break the ice, The Doctor called out to the ceiling, just to wring a giggle out of Yaz.

“Can we have a more relaxing destination next time, dear?”

It worked, and Yaz smiled up at the ceiling with her. In a more pedantic body, The Doctor would probably point out the direction and volume you spoke didn’t matter, but today she could let it sit.

The TARDIS returned an irritated hum, one that The Doctor knew was laced with affection and sympathy. Oh, the TARDIS. She’d been there for all of it. Knew every single one of The Doctor’s ghosts. She took a moment to absorb the weight of that, of having another sentient creature know the extent of her pain. The ex-inhabitants of Desolation had been right: this ship was her ghost monument.

“Eric told us you were staying.” Yaz whispered, setting half-drunk mug of tea down on the table.

One hand reached across the sofa like a bridge between their bodies. The Doctor took it, stroking a thumb across Yaz’s wrist absentmindedly.

“I wanted to… send Eric back. He might’ve been a pretty poor dad, but Hanne’s lost enough.”

_Loved more, lost more._

It came back like an echo, beating in her head.

“What did it say to you, the… Sol…”

“Solitract.”

“The Solitract.”

The Doctor thought it over, for a moment. What had it told her? In that short, agonising, overwhelming time? What had she learnt, from this legendary, powerful, childlike sentience?

“That it’s lonely. Trapped outside reality. That we’re very lucky to be here, in this Universe.” She smiled, ending with a noncommittal shrug.

Yaz was hanging on her every word, but The Doctor couldn’t burden her. Not when she was this young, had so much left to see and learn and _love_ and lose.

“I think it really shook Graham up. It must be hard, to lose someone you love like that.”

“Yeah.”

Yaz stared down at their hands, and so did the Doctor. Yaz’s skin felt warm and pulsing with life, hands soft with youth and fingertips calloused from her work.

“I think I couldn’t lose you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think! Would something like this have been a better third act? I'm not sure.  
> By the way: I've loved the writing this season. This episode was brilliant. The frog just … pulled me out of it.


End file.
